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Avenged Sevenfold - Nobody | New Single Review & New Album Details
49 Plays1 year ago
Avenged Sevenfold are back! With a cryptic countdown, a look back through their career and a brand new single, we are introduced to their new album: ‘Life Is But A Dream…’ - due for release on 2nd June 2023! First up we analyse and discuss the brand new single, “Nobody”!
You can also watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mfJVCp_TzbPNZNMMemJuw
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Minds with Metal. My name is Daria. And I'm Lars. And together we're a husband and wife team, both pro musicians, talking all things
Excitement Over New Single Release
00:00:16
Speaker
happy metal. And today, oh my goodness, how long have we been waiting for this moment to come? And it's here, Avenged Seven Falls, new single called Nobody, without today.
00:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, this is the first single to come from their new album, Life Is But A Dream, which comes out on the 2nd of June this year. And they kind of, let's start from the beginning of what we knew about this. A couple of days ago, maybe one or two days ago, they put a countdown on a video and it stayed there for days and people were just watching it on YouTube countdown. And today we sat there and we waited, we watched it go from 10, 9, 8, all the way down to 1.
00:00:53
Speaker
And then there was a great little montage of the history of the band.
Building Anticipation with Teasers
00:00:57
Speaker
Like, obviously, you know, it would take 10 or 15 minutes to get the history of the band in the one video, but they just sort of highlighted key moments. Debut album, City of Evil, the Rev passing away, Hail to the King, you know, just iconic moments with some shots from their favorite shows and everything. And then... Yeah, very sweet that was, I thought. It was, yeah. And then they introduced us to the first single from their new album, which was
Unpacking the New Single's Elements
00:01:26
Speaker
So we're going to do what we normally do instead of sort of go section by section and break down the song. We're just going to talk about some themes and characteristics that both came up when we listened to it. And I think right from the back, the first thing you hear is that very electronified, which I thought was a cool, heavy riff, but very electronic, wasn't it? Yeah. And straight away, you know, for me, that was hello stage. You know, like if you've heard the stage,
00:01:54
Speaker
the album, I think it was 2016, you'll know that this is the kind of groggy, sort of spacey electronic theme that they went for for the stage. And you know, I thought straight away, I was like, oh, is this going to be a continuation of the stage? You can hear it, can't you? It is definitely there and evident. A lot of production in this song, there was a lot of stuff, very produced, very electronic.
00:02:20
Speaker
When talking about the album, M. Shadow has quite obviously said that we're going to be influenced by Kanye West. Really? Yeah, the Kanye West. I did not know that. He said the Kanye West was a big influence on the album. I think you hear it straight away in this song, even just from the electronics body, like that. I think you get it. But there was almost a little rap in there. And we know he does this before, you know.
00:02:44
Speaker
I know he's melodic but he's kind of talking, it was conversational. It is conversational but I thought straight away the vocal phrasing it is this signature M shadows phrasing you know where he does the yeah that kind of stuff and all those notes I've heard this kind of phrasing before from him and yeah that was kind of reminiscent and it was nice, I quite liked it.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, and I think with his normal vocal phrasing, that gives us his familiarity that this is an avenge track. But as we said, you know, another theme I found kind of electronic and produced was the drums. You listen to the verse, those hi-hats, very, very poppy, very hip-hop, very not metal, but it kind of works with the heavy guitar riff
Songwriting and Influences Discussion
00:03:32
Speaker
behind. And you know, the more I listened to it, because, okay, let's just go back a few hours, okay? When we just heard it,
00:03:40
Speaker
I had a very, so I was a bit confused. I did not expect that. That didn't meet my expectations at all. My expectation was we were going to come in, do something like, it was like a shepherd of fire. I don't know, something that's just going to sweep me off my feet. But instead we had this drag that had so many different elements in it. And I was just like, what a bold move.
00:04:02
Speaker
after such long silence period to come back with a track like this. Absolutely. Yeah, it is a really bold move because it's a slow song. It's not heavy hitting. It doesn't have, I mean, I've been singing the chorus, so I can't say that it's not a memorable chorus, but it's not one of those tracks. But I don't know if, when they tore this album, I don't know if this will be in the set. Let's put it that way. But that's the kind of track I expect a band to put out as a single from their new album. Moving on to talk about the progressiveness, as you said, the stage was a very progressive album.
00:04:32
Speaker
incorporating things like horns, a lot of electronical and synthy sounds, and they're doing the same thing here to the extent where we've got an automated electronic voice, we've got an electronic phaser on the main riff. And I just thought the whole thing was very progressive, even in terms of the songwriting.
00:04:50
Speaker
It was very unconventional and unusual. The first chorus didn't even have a guitar in, it was just the bass and the drums with him singing over it. The song ends with a guitar solo. After the guitar solo ends, it just fades out. Now this is not conventional songwriting in Western pop music that we know, and it's not even conventional songwriting by avenge sevenfold standards. They do the normal thing, they do intro verse, chorus, verse, chorus, break, solo, chorus, end. They're used to doing that and just ending a song, having this,
00:05:19
Speaker
unusual with a solo then fading out i thought was just so wicked yeah and you know that bit where you just have like vocal harmonies yeah tons and tons of layers there lots of layers sounds so jazzy
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, we said jazz earlier. We did. But I feel, on the further list, I feel it's like more like a gospel sounding thing. Yeah, that's right. Just all these vocals, and they all end shadows, but just the way they've been laid and the structure to it, the harmony that they're putting through in those voices is really great, isn't it? Yeah, I actually wouldn't be sure if it's just them shadows. I think I heard other voices there. I might be wrong. But I thought that was just, and there was some effects on the voice as well.
00:06:02
Speaker
I honestly, I was so surprised to hear it at the first listen, but then the more I listened to the song, I was like, I love that. I love that. Sticking with that kind of jazz theme, you can hear it as well. If you listen to the guitar solo, what the bass and drums are doing underneath is so unusual.
00:06:20
Speaker
rhythms they're playing, some of the notes that Johnny Christ is choosing to put in this bass line. I mean, I say bass line, but I don't even think it's a bass line. I think it's a jam, which essentially is what jazz is a lot more than just a jam. But, you know, if you can you can jazz on the root, you can jam on the root note in jazz and just sort of see where the music goes. And it almost feels like they're doing that here in this solo because the drums and the bass are unison and hits together and the odd note choice. And I thought that was really interesting as well.
00:06:49
Speaker
So we've spoken about all the different stuff, the progressiveness, the electronic, the jazzy stuff, the vocals. Now let's talk about the metal, because that's what we're here for, and that is why we're listening to them sevenfold. What did you like about it? Did you like it? See, when you ask me about the metal side of things, I feel a bit, I'm like, oh, metal. The metal side, we're going to talk about the metal now.
00:07:18
Speaker
I don't know. I think, I guess I just like the general sort of slow sort of metal vibe about it. I like, it wasn't heavy. Heavy, was it? I think if you go back and listen again, let me tell you what's happened. Go on. Dash, you've been away for two hours and I've spent, so we listened to the song together, then you went away for two hours and now we're here recording about it.
00:07:39
Speaker
I've spent the whole last two hours with the song on repeat, which I didn't tell you that. Seriously? I have listened to the song like 20 times, and each time I listen to it, I enjoy it more and more and more. And a large part of that is that with the embellishments of the electronic beats or the unconventional structure and the vocals that are going on, underneath all that is a really good heavy metal song. Because if you listen to that verse, it's just...
00:08:10
Speaker
If you put it that way. Exactly. When you strip away the stuff and just have the guitar riff, it's metal. Kind of sabbath-y. I get this doom vibe. And the chorus as well. I mean, I just can't get it out of my head. And this is all really interesting because when we first heard the song, it was so unusual and it wasn't what we were expecting. And we both kind of looked at each other and went, right.
00:08:38
Speaker
What do you think about that? But as it's gone on and on, I really have. I mean, it's only been out three hours, but I really have fallen in love with this song. I mean, it's growing on me already. I listened to it, what, five times probably before I had to go? And I think, honestly, you guys, give it a good listen, because should we talk about the reaction from the public? Yeah, so far. It's only been three hours, but what we're seeing, I mean, what have you been seeing online?
00:09:05
Speaker
Very mixed, very mixed. People say, literally, there's some really rude comments that I actually don't wanna repeat because I love the band. But generally, it's like, this is not what people expected. I think after the stage, people were expecting something that was a little more back to the old Avenged, less progressive. But Avenged came out and said it a few months ago. They said that they were gonna
Album Inspiration and Themes
00:09:33
Speaker
keep on this psychedelic path that they were going on and I've read a bit about the album already and the whole album is based off the concept of a book I think it's called The Stranger and I can't remember who the books by but I'm sure we can find it and put it in the show notes and it's about existential humanity and how humans work in evolution. That makes sense with the video if you watch you should watch the video it makes sense. And I think that they're just on this journey musically and emotionally and spiritually where they're just finding
00:10:04
Speaker
what they want to put into their music. And, you know, I might prefer City of Evil or the White Album or Nightmare as sort of albums, but who am I as a fan of the band? Who am I to say, no, don't do that, you know, come do what I want? Because frankly, is this my favorite ever-avenged song? Not likely. I mean, it could be. Certainly it's growing on the minute by minute, but
00:10:33
Speaker
I'm just happy that they're producing something that they feel is worth their time and effort and money because there's been a lot of time put into this. Hence, you know, the numerous delays. And one thing we did think that the delays could have been a reason for having heard this song could be to do with M Shadow's vocals.
00:10:53
Speaker
Now, with Bo, I mean, M Shadow were one of my favourite bands, one of the first metal bands I ever got into, and they've certainly, since you started listening, they've become one of your favourites too. And M Shadow is a huge part of that, yeah, such a character, such a defining, distinctive, unique voice. And when these first few notes came in into the song, there was something felt a little off, do you want to elaborate?
00:11:15
Speaker
yeah so if you listen to other avenged records you'll hear that m shadow has got this really sort of bright but bright tone but that's got a lot of rasp in it yeah it's very powerful here i didn't i didn't feel that power come through that meaning i didn't feel that brightness really come through and to me as a singer i feel like
00:11:41
Speaker
It's just maybe the stamina isn't there anymore as much as it used to be. But it might be production. Well, that's it. And we're just speculating here. Why is the album delayed? People online are talking about they're not a fan of his vocals. And his vocals sound different. I was chatting to my best friend whilst we were the song was on. And the first thing he said, he said, the vocals don't sound quite strong enough. And we agreed, which is really interesting. So we're just speculating, but it could be a reason as to why this album's been delayed.
00:12:12
Speaker
So just some last little bits of information regarding the new album. I mean, I've already pre-ordered my Brown limited edition, only 1,000 copies made
Pre-orders and Release Details
00:12:20
Speaker
vinyl. I had to do it straight away. And it's coming from America, so I had to pay stupid amounts of shipping, but I couldn't miss out on this. You know that they're one of my favourite amount, I just had to. And you're there, I was like, should I pay for it? And you're like, just do it, just do it, just do it. So at the table, we'll probably bring you a vinyl unboxing of that one when that comes out. But the album comes out June the 2nd, it's called Life is But a Dream, and we've got the track listing here.
00:12:42
Speaker
There's 11 tracks, they're called Game Over, Mattel, Nobody, We Love You, Cosmic, Beautiful Morning, Easier, G, Ordinary, with the O in brackets, Death, with the D in brackets, so you've got G-O-D, God, and then the final track, Life is But a Dream. So that's all the information we have for now, really. Brand new single, which to me is really good, I'm really enjoying it. Different, unique, unusual,
00:13:12
Speaker
but I still like the impact it's had. New album, track listing, two gigs in America that they're doing with it. And that's it. So, I mean, here begins our wait. What's all that, long is it? Three months. So three months until the new album comes out. And you better believe that if there is another single, we will be straight on that. If not, Avenged Fans will see you when the album comes out.
00:13:38
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for being here with us today. I hope you enjoyed this video. Please let us know in the comments below, how did you find the new Avenged single? And let's
Podcast Promotion and Engagement
00:13:49
Speaker
discuss it. And don't forget, if you don't have time to actually watch the video, we've got a dedicated podcast available to you. You can find us on Apple, Amazon, or Spotify, or any other podcasting platform. Share this with your friends, share this with your Avenged fans. Right down there, hit subscribe, hit like to follow us for more metal content.
00:14:06
Speaker
Thanks for joining us and have a middle day. Have a lovely day. We'll see you very soon.